Amptweaker - Tight Metal  [traced]

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J0K3RX
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Post by J0K3RX »

teddeeh wrote:Many thanks. I like the change, i think it definaty makes it more versatile but.. theres almost a hiss that lasts on a ringing note or chord likes its reverberating the springs on a snare drum..
Not sure about the hiss, I haven't experienced anything quite like that. Did you use shielded wire on your input jack and gain pot? Did you make a break in the ground trace that is surrounding the circuit? Have you put it inside an enclosure yet? Move the wires and pots around while hitting a note and see if it changes or stops at any certain points. This pedal is fairly noisy when the gain is cranked, about like any other high gain pedal in this class.. I guess you could call it a hiss or white noise. :hmmm:

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Halfeld
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Post by Halfeld »

Hey J0K3RX! First of all thank your very very much for the layout and schematics! Awesome job! :applause:
I'm with everything set up, but i can't make it work properly. If i wire the input tip into the input (that connects to the 470pF, 33nF and 1M resistor), the only thing i can get is a weak low-gain sound, like a very old 9V battery is connected to the +9V.
I made the jumps on both Sends and Returns since i was not going to use them anyway, with the properly changed resistors (R4 1M and R5 475K for 330K, removed R38 100K, changing R36 47.5K for 150K). But even before changing those resistors, i still had the same sound connecting Sends/Returns togheter.

I can only get a decent sound when i solder the input wire on the Send1/Return1 (with jumper) track, but with some hiss, since the signal is skipping a lot of components.

All pins voltage were verified and it's all correct, i don't know where to search for mistakes anymore :(

Do you experienced this problem before? Any ideias what can cause this?

TL/DR:

Built the pedal. Input wire soldered on input board sounds weak and poor. Input wire soldered on Send1 sounds ok but with some treble hiss in a really high frequency (probably someone with 50 years old woldn't hear it). Any ideas? :hmmm:

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teddeeh
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Post by teddeeh »

J0K3RX wrote: Not sure about the hiss, I haven't experienced anything quite like that. Did you use shielded wire on your input jack and gain pot? Did you make a break in the ground trace that is surrounding the circuit? Have you put it inside an enclosure yet? Move the wires and pots around while hitting a note and see if it changes or stops at any certain points. This pedal is fairly noisy when the gain is cranked, about like any other high gain pedal in this class.. I guess you could call it a hiss or white noise. :hmmm:
I think i may have had it sorted... its not the circuit. I think its the amp. I have a small blackstar fly i use to try my circuits out on and ive built several in the past week and only a couple i really enjoyed playing, and i got the same results when i was having a good old noodle with the jan ray clone i made. I will plug into a proper amp when i get the chance and let you know the results. In answer to your questions, i dont think the ground is looped completely, the pots and wires are shielded and good solder joins, no enclosure (sadly i have to choose my enclosure circuits with careful selection as i dont have many at the moment and am trying to come up with a way to manufacture my own cheaply and easily.)
The hiss occurs once a note has been struck and rings out, which with the problem occuring with two different circuits with different components leads me to question if it is the amp, not the circuit.
Thanks so much for all you do man, will let you know further testing. Your mods to the tight rock make this way more versatile imho, with a high gain saturation possible aswell. Awesome stuff sir.

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Post by Halfeld »

Halfeld wrote:Hey J0K3RX! First of all thank your very very much for the layout and schematics! Awesome job! :applause:
I'm with everything set up, but i can't make it work properly. If i wire the input tip into the input (that connects to the 470pF, 33nF and 1M resistor), the only thing i can get is a weak low-gain sound, like a very old 9V battery is connected to the +9V.
I made the jumps on both Sends and Returns since i was not going to use them anyway, with the properly changed resistors (R4 1M and R5 475K for 330K, removed R38 100K, changing R36 47.5K for 150K). But even before changing those resistors, i still had the same sound connecting Sends/Returns togheter.

I can only get a decent sound when i solder the input wire on the Send1/Return1 (with jumper) track, but with some hiss, since the signal is skipping a lot of components.

All pins voltage were verified and it's all correct, i don't know where to search for mistakes anymore :(

Do you experienced this problem before? Any ideias what can cause this?

TL/DR:

Built the pedal. Input wire soldered on input board sounds weak and poor. Input wire soldered on Send1 sounds ok but with some treble hiss in a really high frequency (probably someone with 50 years old woldn't hear it). Any ideas? :hmmm:
Hey again! I solved my problem by jumping "Input" to "Send1/Return1 (with jumper)", then adding a 47nF capacitor between the gate session and ground. The hiss is no longer there and i have a bit more low tone (that i like a lot). I still need to verify if there is any parts with no use on the PCB, but now it's sounding great! :thumbsup

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abakuzam
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Post by abakuzam »

Hello, i have a few toubles with this pedal not (not boxed it yet) , using this layout : http://effectslayouts.blogspot.com.tr/2 ... metal.html, and i'm running it with 9v battery

İ have a high pitched sound while turning up the gain , pedal does it's job very good, it kinda goes away when i put my finger on gain pot and gate pot lugs, i jumped the effects loop, i feel like it's a grounding problem :/ Maybe i have a bad grounding at home.

Things i did;

- Checked all the values, changed diodes, pots, jacks, switches, orientation of caps and diodes,
- Checked all the ic voltages, looks normal on this one, ( Similiar to previous posts)
- Cut the ground to prevent ground loop, didn't work
- Looked for the cold solder joints, i have none
- Solder bridges, shorts, trace cuts, all good
- İ changed the suspicious parts on the gain and gate section, still no improvement

Things i didn't do;
- Not used the shielded wire ( it was for test , i didn't find it neccessary for now)
- Etched a new layout, or try other's layout

i would appreciate any suggestions, i like debugging but this one kinda out of fun :D

Thank you, let the metal flow..

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Nicht Bernd
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Post by Nicht Bernd »

Hi Abakuzam,

against a high pitched sound while turning up the gain-shielded wire. It´s a super high gainer!

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Post by abakuzam »

Nicht Bernd wrote:Hi Abakuzam,

against a high pitched sound while turning up the gain-shielded wire. It´s a super high gainer!
well that's what i thought, pedal seems to be working, i will try and post the results ,

Thank you, let the metal flow

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Halfeld
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Post by Halfeld »

abakuzam wrote:Hello, i have a few toubles with this pedal not (not boxed it yet) , using this layout : http://effectslayouts.blogspot.com.tr/2 ... metal.html, and i'm running it with 9v battery

İ have a high pitched sound while turning up the gain , pedal does it's job very good, it kinda goes away when i put my finger on gain pot and gate pot lugs, i jumped the effects loop, i feel like it's a grounding problem :/ Maybe i have a bad grounding at home.
Hey, abakuzam! Try to add a 10n~47n ceramic capacitor bwtween Gate Pot leg 2 and ground.

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Halfeld
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Post by Halfeld »

Mine is finished! Thank you very much, JOK3RX! I built the mod for changing to Metal/Rock version and the Gate knob for more noise control! This pedal sounds AMAZING!

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hrs
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Post by hrs »

Hi,

Could anyone clarify some things for me?
What are the 4, 8, 11, 4 pins for on the rcustoms schematic?
Compared to the schematic of bajaman, is the schematic of rcustoms missing a 47 ohm resistor? Does it matter?

Thanks.
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J0K3RX
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Post by J0K3RX »

See attached...
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temol
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Post by temol »

I've just finished TM build (effectslayouts pcb) and I have a question about "tight" knob. When rotating "tight" there is no change in the sound until last 20 degrees or something like that. Is this normal? Potentiometer is B100k.

T.

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J0K3RX
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Post by J0K3RX »

temol wrote:I've just finished TM build (effectslayouts pcb) and I have a question about "tight" knob. When rotating "tight" there is no change in the sound until last 20 degrees or something like that. Is this normal? Potentiometer is B100k.

T.
not normal.. Tight pot should be C100k. I can say that with 100% certainty because I am sitting here looking right at it :wink:

I would like to know why the "Tight" pot on the BE-OD works so good and not so much on the Amptweaker pedals? I haven't built the BE-OD yet so, I am only going by what I have heard people say.. I can't stand it on the amptweaker boxes, sounds like it's sucking the life out of it when you dial it up!

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bmxguitarsbmx
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Post by bmxguitarsbmx »

Is it because the Be-od is "Tight before clipping", and the Amptweaker has clipping before tight?

I don't know myself, I haven't played the tight metal.

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J0K3RX
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Post by J0K3RX »

bmxguitarsbmx wrote:Is it because the Be-od is "Tight before clipping", and the Amptweaker has clipping before tight?
I don't know but, I wouldn't think so..? I never really experimented with the tight pot on the tight metal or tight rock because they both seem to be already about as tight as you would ever want... Adding a tight control to them is like adding wetness control knob next to the water on/off knob in your shower... Maybe if it made it less tight (loose) it could serve a purpose because I find the Amptweaker pedals to be a bit stiff and unforgiving especially for playing lead solos. The clipping in the first stages of the tight metal don't seem to have much affect if I my memory is correct because i have removed them and it made little to no difference in the over all gain, sound or feel.. The BE-OD tight pot is connected to vref instead of gnd but I am not sure if that makes much difference either..? Maybe the placement in the circuit makes a difference like sticking it after the first opamp which is also before the clipping, dunno... I will have to mess around with it when I get a chance...

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Post by plush »

temol wrote:I've just finished TM build (effectslayouts pcb) and I have a question about "tight" knob. When rotating "tight" there is no change in the sound until last 20 degrees or something like that. Is this normal? Potentiometer is B100k.

T.
Just use c100k

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temol
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Post by temol »

not normal.. Tight pot should be C100k. I can say that with 100% certainty because I am sitting here looking right at it :wink:
Changed the pot to C taper, now there is a full range adjustment. Thanks!

T.

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Post by bool »

>>>> Maybe if it made it less tight (loose) it could serve a purpose because I find the Amptweaker pedals to be a bit stiff and unforgiving especially for playing lead solos.

Adding a "loose" switch to the "tight" control could be made by simply breaking the continuity to the pot with a simple on-off switch; and adding a "just right" resistance in parallel to that switch (possibly a 100k preset/trimmer - or another pot) - meaning that if you had the tight pot sitting at your favorite setting with X kOhm; by flipping a switch you would jump to X + Y kOhm for your lead etc.

Or just mod the thing to switch between two "tight" pots; one being "looser" and the other "tighter" (say, one being a default 100k and the loose one a 200k ...).

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Post by bmxguitarsbmx »

J0K3RX wrote:
bmxguitarsbmx wrote:Is it because the Be-od is "Tight before clipping", and the Amptweaker has clipping before tight?
I don't know but, I wouldn't think so..? I never really experimented with the tight pot on the tight metal or tight rock because they both seem to be already about as tight as you would ever want... Adding a tight control to them is like adding wetness control knob next to the water on/off knob in your shower... Maybe if it made it less tight (loose) it could serve a purpose because I find the Amptweaker pedals to be a bit stiff and unforgiving especially for playing lead solos. The clipping in the first stages of the tight metal don't seem to have much affect if I my memory is correct because i have removed them and it made little to no difference in the over all gain, sound or feel.. The BE-OD tight pot is connected to vref instead of gnd but I am not sure if that makes much difference either..? Maybe the placement in the circuit makes a difference like sticking it after the first opamp which is also before the clipping, dunno... I will have to mess around with it when I get a chance...

Interesting.

The Tightmetal does already have treble emphasis early on (c4 R5= 720Hz 1st order Highpass ) Then again (c7&R9 make a 2nd order High Step @ 3.2kHz) Then it hits the "Tight control". Usually, there is only one, and sometimes two stages of treble emphasis, if it is highly saturated. Integrating the tight control earlier or replacing one of the existing treble emphasis stages would probably make it more useful. The BEOD tight is useful and also the only treble emphasis stage in that pedal.

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Post by Ichabod_Crane »

I built the Tight Metal on a verified veroboard layout following this schematic:

I jumpered the loop effects.
It sounds ok, but it is hugely LOUD! I can't go over 1/10 of the volume pot, it's really hard to set the right level, and the 90% of the pot is unusable and dangerous.
The volume pot is a B10k.

I could change the pot, but I don't want to modify the schematic and to change the sound.
I power it up at 9v. And I'm not using the charge pump, I have built it later.

Help, please!
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